BTCC: Double points for BMW Pirtek Racing

BMW Pirtek Racing recorded a pair of points finishes in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton in Hampshire (May 7).

Driver Andrew Jordan ran 12th in his WSR-run BMW 125i M Sport in Race One before a late-race spin in the heat of battle dropped him to 28th and put him on the back foot for the rest of the day.

A superb charge in Race Two brought him to 14th by the end of a shortened encounter that was twice red-flagged, while his best result of the day came in Race Three, in which the Lichfield driver delivered a 13th-place finish.

Those results put the 2013 BTCC champion 11th in the Drivers’ Championship and BMW Pirtek Racing 10th in the Teams’ title race with three of the year’s 10 events completed.

The results achieved by BMW at Thruxton helped the German marque maintain the lead of the Manufacturers’ Championship.

The BTCC resumes in two weeks’ time at the picturesque Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire, where Andrew will be aiming to add to his victory at Brands Hatch on the opening weekend of the season.

Andrew Jordan said: “It’s been quite a frustrating weekend for me and the team. After the test here I felt reasonably comfortable with the BMW on the new-for-2017 Dunlops, but this weekend I just haven’t gelled with the car. The spin in Race One was totally my fault and Race Two was actually pretty good and I made up 14 places in only a handful of racing laps; it’s just a shame the race was red-flagged and declared early, because I could have finished higher. On the plus side, now we head to Oulton Park – always a good BMW circuit – with no ballast, so the aim will be to kick our season back into gear.”

Dick Bennetts, Team Principal, said: “It’s been a tough weekend for BMW Pirtek Racing, but we’ve managed to come home with a pair of points finishes. Thruxton isn’t an easy track to come to for the first time in a rear-wheel-drive touring car, so we knew it would be a big ask to be right at the front. Andrew’s been a bit unlucky in that without the shortening of Race Two, he could potentially have got into the top 10 and you never know what can happen with the reversed-grid, but it wasn’t to be today.”